Casio Europe releases Exilim EX-ZR300 high-speed compact camera

Casio Europe has launched the Exilim EX-ZR300, released in Japan in May 2012. It features a 12.5x, 24-300mm zoom lens and dual processors to help it offer focus times as short as 0.12s. It is also designed to offer control over both Flash Air and Eye-Fi wireless SD cards, for simple connection to smartphones. In common with other recent Casio flagship models, it also offers a series of high-speed features and is rated at an impressive 500 shots per charge, using CIPA testing methodology. It will be available for August at a cost of around €279.

Comments

I guess that the "DV" stands for Digital Video. I know that Casio has produced some high-speed (slow-motion) video recording compact cameras before, so I believe that this is also the case here. What is then missing is the info about FPS's and frame resolutions. If it is better than Nikon 1's V1 and J1, I would definitely get one for slow-motion video recording.

Looking at the older models such as the ZR100, they look popular in germany. The ZR100 is sitting at #16 and #19 on the top selling compact camera list on amazon, but in the US the ZR100 is #674.

I owned the ZR100 for a bit and returned it. I own and love a EX-Z750 and EX-Z850 so my casio standards are fairly high. Compared to those two cameras the ZR100 had horrible build quality (felt cheap and rattled) and the image IQ was abysmal.

That's too bad as Casio is still the everything but the kitchen sink "scene mode" king and tops in battery life (at 500 shots this is wonderful compared to canone etc, but OK not great for casio. They've had cameras that do 1000 shots on a single charge).

Yeah, I got their EX-F1 bridge camera which was a fun toy (including hi-speed video with tiny frames), and tend to recommend their compacts to people looking for a cheap and easy to use experience. I can understand why they don't bother "moving up" to ILCs though...

What's the point of this release, when everybody else has brand new exciting cameras to show?

Everything on this camera looks the same as in the older ZR200, excpet for the Flash Air and Eye-Fi. The old one also has 16 MP bsi cmos sensor, 12.5 zoom, dual processor etc, and even looks identical to this one.

A dual processor is in my current P&S (Olympus SZ-30MR), and it has opened the possiblity of shooting stills and video at the same time, or stills or videos of different formats at the same time. Does away with the need to re-scale everything later.

The release note is short on specs - What type is the sensor? Hope it is a BSI-CMOS.

The days of the dedicated Compact Pocket Camera and/or Camcorder (Xacti, Flip) seem to be coming to a slow close what with their functionality being taken over by modern Smart Phones with photo and video capabilities that are now beginning to rival stand alone photo and video solutions at around the same price point. Why carry with you 2 or 3 devices on holiday when all you need is your latest smart phone?